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Romeo and Juliet: Act III, Scene 2

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Romeo and Juliet
Act III, Scene 2

Capulet’s orchard.

Costume design for the nurse

Costume design for the nurse

Percy Anderson, circa 1900

  1. Enter Juliet alone.

Juliet

1 - 35
  1. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
  2. Towards Phoebus’ lodging; such a wagoner
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    The Greek god, also known as Apollo, who drove the sun across the sky.
  3. As Phaëton would whip you to the west,
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    Phaëton was Phoebus’ son. Phaëton attempted to drive Phoebus’ chariot (the sun) across the sky but lost control. To keep the chariot from scorching the earth, Zeus killed Phaëton.
  4. And bring in cloudy night immediately.
  5. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
  6. That th’ runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
  7. Leap to these arms untalk’d of and unseen!
  8. Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
  9. By their own beauties, or, if love be blind,
  10. It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
  11. Thou sober-suited matron all in black,
  12. And learn me how to lose a winning match,
  13. Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
  14. Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
  15. With thy black mantle, till strange love grow bold,
  16. Think true love acted simple modesty.
  17. Come, night, come, Romeo, come, thou day in night,
  18. For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night,
  19. Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.
  20. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
  21. Give me my Romeo, and, when I shall die,
  22. Take him and cut him out in little stars,
  23. And he will make the face of heaven so fine
  24. That all the world will be in love with night,
  25. And pay no worship to the garish sun.
  26. O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
  27. But not possess’d it, and though I am sold,
  28. Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day
  29. As is the night before some festival
  30. To an impatient child that hath new robes
  31. And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
  32. Enter Nurse wringing her hands, with the ladder of cords in
  33. her lap.
  34. And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
  35. But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.
  36. Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? The cords
  37. That Romeo bid thee fetch?

Nurse

36
  1.                            Ay, ay, the cords.
  1. Throws them down.

Juliet

37
  1. Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?
Hutton Gregory as the nurse

Hutton Gregory as the nurse

Anna Lea Merritt, 1884

Nurse

38 - 40
  1. Ah, weraday, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    An exclamation of sorrow, similar to “alas”. Early editions of Romeo and Juliet have the word as “welady”.
  2. We are undone, lady, we are undone!
  3. Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead!

Juliet

41
  1. Can heaven be so envious?

Nurse

42 - 44
  1.                           Romeo can,
  2. Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo!
  3. Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

Juliet

45 - 53
  1. What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?
  2. This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
  3. Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ay,
  4. And that bare vowel I shall poison more
  5. Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    A mythical reptile that could kill by looking at someone.
  6. I am not I, if there be such an ay,
  7. Or those eyes shut, that makes thee answer ay.
  8. If he be slain, say ay, or if not, no.
  9. Brief sounds determine my weal or woe.

Nurse

54 - 58
  1. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes—
  2. God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
  3. A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse,
  4. Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
  5. All in gore blood; I swooned at the sight.

Juliet

59 - 62
  1. O, break, my heart, poor bankrupt, break at once!
  2. To prison, eyes, ne’er look on liberty!
  3. Vile earth, to earth resign, end motion here,
  4. And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

Nurse

63 - 65
  1. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
  2. O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman,
  3. That ever I should live to see thee dead!

Juliet

66 - 70
  1. What storm is this that blows so contrary?
  2. Is Romeo slaught’red? And is Tybalt dead?
  3. My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
  4. Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom,
  5. For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse

71 - 72
  1. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
  2. Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

Juliet

73
  1. O God, did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

Nurse

74
  1. It did, it did, alas the day, it did!

Juliet

75 - 87
  1. O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!
  2. Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
  3. Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical!
  4. Dove-feather’d raven! Wolvish ravening lamb!
  5. Despised substance of divinest show!
  6. Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
  7. A damned saint, an honorable villain!
  8. O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
  9. When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
  10. In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
  11. Was ever book containing such vile matter
  12. So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
  13. In such a gorgeous palace!
Juliet and her nurse

Juliet and her nurse

J.R. Spencer Stanhope, circa 1860

Nurse

88 - 93
  1.                            There’s no trust,
  2. No faith, no honesty in men, all perjur’d,
  3. All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
  4. Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua-vitae;
  5. These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
  6. Shame come to Romeo!

Juliet

94 - 99
  1.                      Blister’d be thy tongue
  2. For such a wish! He was not born to shame:
  3. Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
  4. For ’tis a throne where honor may be crown’d
  5. Sole monarch of the universal earth.
  6. O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Nurse

100
  1. Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?

Juliet

101 - 131
  1. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
  2. Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
  3. When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
  4. But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
  5. That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
  6. Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
  7. Your tributary drops belong to woe,
  8. Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
  9. My husband lives that Tybalt would have slain,
  10. And Tybalt’s dead that would have slain my husband.
  11. All this is comfort, wherefore weep I then?
  12. Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
  13. That murd’red me; I would forget it fain,
  14. But O, it presses to my memory
  15. Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds:
  16. “Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.”
  17. That “banished,” that one word “banished,”
  18. Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
  19. Was woe enough if it had ended there;
  20. Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
  21. And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
  22. Why followed not, when she said, “Tybalt’s dead,”
  23. Thy father or thy mother, nay, or both,
  24. Which modern lamentation might have moved?
  25. But with a rearward following Tybalt’s death,
  26. “Romeo is banished”: to speak that word,
  27. Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
  28. All slain, all dead: “Romeo is banished”!
  29. There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
  30. In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.
  31. Where is my father and my mother, nurse?
An all-star cast presenting Shakepeare's sublime tragedy, Romeo & Juliet

An all-star cast presenting Shakepeare's sublime tragedy, Romeo & Juliet

Strobridge & Co., 1903

Nurse

132 - 133
  1. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.
  2. Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

Juliet

134 - 141
  1. Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be spent,
  2. When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
  3. Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
  4. Both you and I, for Romeo is exil’d.
  5. He made you for a highway to my bed,
  6. But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
  7. Come, cords, come, nurse, I’ll to my wedding-bed,
  8. And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

Nurse

142 - 145
  1. Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
  2. To comfort you, I wot well where he is.
  3. Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
  4. I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.

Juliet

146 - 147
  1. O, find him! Give this ring to my true knight,
  2. And bid him come to take his last farewell.
  1. Exeunt.
Sally Booth as Juliet

Sally Booth as Juliet

circa 1820

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